Tennessee football jumped three-spots to No. 8 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday night. The Vols were a major beneficiary of the chaos in college football over the weekend and are now control their own destiny to make the playoffs.
If the playoff started today, Tennessee would be the No. 9 seed and would be headed on the road for its first game in the playoffs. But if the Vols get some help in the final week of the season, Tennessee could end up hosting a College Football Playoff game at Neyland Stadium.
After releasing the latest rankings on Wednesday, CFP chair Warde Manuel answered questions from the media. Here’s everything Manuel said about the latest rankings.
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On Clemson being ahead of three-loss SEC teams like Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina
“Well, Clemson slid up with some losses ahead of them by Alabama and Mississippi, and they had a win against Citadel, obviously, but that wasn’t the big reason.
Obviously they’re at 9-2, with only two losses. The teams right behind them have three losses. We just felt as a committee as we looked at their body of work, with three straight wins after their loss to Louisville, including back-to-back wins against Virginia Tech and Pitt, that they deserved to move up into that 12th position.”
On if Texas would make the playoffs if they lose to Texas A&M on Saturday
“Thanks for your question. We don’t, I don’t, get into projections. We don’t talk about projections when we get in the room, about the what-ifs, if people lose games then where will it put them. Obviously you can see from the number of losses we had this week, it just depends on what happens. There was a lot to sort out this week with seven of the top 25 losing, two big upsets in the top 10.
So we don’t project what will happen. We just look at what happens overall amongst the teams this weekend to make our decision over the next two weekends really.”
On how they views SMU (No. 9) compared to Indiana (No. 10)
“Yeah, like I said on the ESPN interview, Indiana played well at times against Ohio State, and obviously Ohio State pulled away in the second half. We felt also SMU has been playing really dominant football as of late, with the way they played against Virginia at Virginia, they’ve had some great wins, only one loss. Kevin Jennings is one of the dynamic quarterbacks in the country at the present time.
So we just felt that SMU and their play on the field, they moved ahead of Indiana this week, and we’ll continue to monitor it as we move forward.”
On how important quality wins was in that debate
“Well, at this time I would just say the strength of schedule for Indiana improved greatly when they played Ohio State, but SMU just has been consistent in the last few weeks in terms of their performance and the committee as we looked at it ranked SMU ahead of Indiana.”
On moving Army out of the top 25
“Look, Army has played well against their competition, but the reality is they had a really — one of the lowest or highest, however you want to look at it, strengths of schedule, and they really got in that game against Notre Dame. We felt they were really dominated against that opponent.
We moved them out of the top 25 based on what others had done also behind them, and so we’ll continue to monitor Army, and we still think that they’re a really good team. We just felt that given where they were this week that they moved out of the top 25.”
On if Boise State winning close affected its rankings
“Well, they won, and we value winning. We value how the teams play, and in the end, the scoreboard matters. What they have done, the only loss they have, as you know, is a very close three-point loss at Oregon at the beginning of the year, and they’ve run the tables since then.
For us, Jeanty has been amazing, over 2,000 yards rushing. He appears to have some injuries that he’s dealing with, but he’s toughed it out, and they’ve won the games. We think highly of Boise State and will continue to watch them.
We have some people on the committee that played at Wyoming when they were coaches, and they really say it’s a tough environment to play in. Obviously Wyoming gave Boise State a great game, but Boise State won.”
On Tulane being ranked below Arizona State and Memphis
“Well, Arizona State has had two great wins against two ranked opponents in Kansas State and BYU. As you know, Tulane at this time has played Kansas State as their only ranked opponent and they lost to Kansas State at the beginning of the year, but they played very well since those two losses to Kansas State and Oklahoma.
We just felt Arizona State is playing at a level that moves them up ahead of Tulane, but as you can see, they’re one away from each other, so we think highly of both of them.”
On how a win over South Carolina would help Clemson’s resume
“I’ll continue to say we don’t look forward and we don’t project, but winning always helps. I will say that.
When teams win, we value what they do. I don’t know what that would mean towards where they will be in projecting, but there is value in winning games.”
On comparing Alabama and Ole Miss resume
“Yeah, they’re really — I would say in the committee’s eyes, they’re really similar teams, and they’ve had similar ways that they’ve gone through the season.
Both have had losses that you didn’t expect them to have. Alabama had a loss at Oklahoma, and Oklahoma’s performance was dominant against Alabama, and then you have the loss by Mississippi to Florida at Florida. It was one of those losses that you just don’t expect them to have. It was a close game, but where we evaluated it, we came out with Alabama ahead of Mississippi and South Carolina since Alabama and Mississippi both won head to head against South Carolina.”
On why Alabama was the top three-loss team
“Because of their win over Georgia. They won against Missouri. They’ve beat South Carolina and they won at LSU in dominant fashion. When you put those four wins against Mississippi and what they did, they had the win against Georgia and the win at South Carolina, but they had a tough loss to Florida; lost to LSU in overtime.
So when we compared resumes that’s how we saw it in terms of the difference between Alabama and Mississippi.”
On if there is a way for the Big 12 Champion to jump Boise State
“Again, I can’t project what will happen and how the committee will look at it. I think we will assess — well, I know we will assess the outcome of these games this week and championship games and rank teams accordingly based on how they perform and whether they’ll — how it will move.
As you could see from this week, you had some teams drop five, six, seven, nine spots. You had teams that went up three or four or five slots. It just depends on the outcome of the games as we evaluate it.”
On if they value game control or come backs more
“Well, I think we value both when you win. Miami had the dominant win over Florida. Then they had a close win in a very good game against Louisville. They found a way to win close games until they played Georgia Tech at Georgia Tech.
But you look at what they did this past weekend with their win over Wake Forest, it reminded the committee of how they played against Florida.
We value winning, but yeah, we do see when teams are playing close games and how they finish and whether they win them or lose them. We do watch that. But we value ultimately when teams do find a way to win.
But Miami has done both. They’ve dominated teams and they’ve had some very close games. Even the loss to Georgia Tech was a close game.”
On how close Indiana (No. 10) and Clemson (No. 12) are
“They are pretty close. They’re two away. Obviously you can see that we think that they are close in proximity to each other.
Indiana’s only loss was to the No. 2 Ohio State team at Ohio State, but they have wins over Michigan and Nebraska and Washington. Indiana is a very good team. Clemson has bounced back from their Louisville loss and their loss to Georgia at the beginning of the year with back to back road wins at Virginia Tech and Pitt. They’ve come on, and again, as expected, as they sat some of their starters against Citadel and still dominated them as we expected.
We think highly of both teams, and like I said, as you could see, they’re very close in the rankings together.”
On if Georgia would fall behind Tennessee if they lost the SEC Championship, if they would jump Miami with a win over Georgia Tech
“Yeah, again, both the questions — I get what you’re asking, but both of them are sort of projecting. We value teams that make the championship. It is of value to us. But we’ve been asked by the commissioners to rank the teams all the way through the championship weekend.
For us, Georgia winning this week, we’ll evaluate that as it relates to if they win, how the game is played, how they win, just like we do every week compared to what others do around them, and then with the championship game and valuing both, we will see the outcome of the game, the way teams are playing.
It’s another data point to look at it for us to assess teams as it relates to how we do the final top 25 ranking because that’s our focus.
The focus is not on ranking teams to get to the playoff, it’s ranking the top 25 and then we’ll let the seeding principles that have been developed by the commissioners to take place after that.”
On if there’s any difference in method in the final rankings compared to the previous ones
“There’s no difference in the methodology. We go through the same process week by week to rank the top 25. We assess and we debate and we discuss, and everybody looks at the films in preparation for the discussion.
So there’s really no difference in terms of how we go about ranking the teams in the last week. It’s the same 1 through 25 process that we have done since the first week.”
On if they talk about who they think would win a potential matchup
“Well, the answer to your question is no. If it starts to creep into the conversation, I make sure I cut it off. We don’t project. We don’t know.
There has been, like I said before, in the last two weeks, 14 teams in the top 25 have lost. So it’s hard to predict if this team plays that team who will win. If this team plays that team, who’s going to be favored by Vegas and the sportsbook.
We can’t get into that because all we can deal with is what happens on the field of play. That’s the best way, the most fair way for us to assess the team is by what happens on the field of play. We cannot get into projections.”
On weighing wins versus good teams with opportunities
“You know, it’s a great question, and it’s one that we debate. One of the things that we talk about is teams can only play the schedule they have in front of them against the teams that have been, from a conference standpoint, assigned. We can maybe be critical of non-conference schedules and those kind of things, but when it gets to the conference, particularly as these conferences have expanded, there are more teams to play throughout the conference.
Teams can only play the schedule that’s in front of them. They can only play the opponents that they have.
So we take the stance that we’re going to really look at these games, we’re going to look at the stats, we’re going to look at the strength of schedule, but we’re also going to look at how teams are performing against the competition that they have.
From our perspective, if it was just about strength of schedule, we wouldn’t be needed. You could just take at the end of the season the top 12 teams with the highest strength of schedule and put them against each other.
What we’ve been asked to do is to judge and to look at how teams are playing against the competition that they have and to rank them accordingly to how we see it, and that’s the way I would explain how we take a look and we look at the differences even though the schedules and the opponents may be different.”
On if it was a tough decision for Notre Dame not to jump Penn State
“Well, there was a lot of discussion about those teams and how they had performed. Penn State’s only loss is to the No. 2 team in the country. They have a win over No. 23 Illinois. Notre Dame has a win now over No. 20 Texas A&M as of today; Army is not in the rankings.
Notre Dame’s loss was to Northern Illinois at the beginning of the year, but they won nine straight games in pretty dominant fashion since then.
So from our standpoint, resumes are pretty close in terms of how we see them. Obviously with them ranked 4 and 5. And we will continue — they both have games this week that we will watch. Penn State plays Maryland, I believe, and Notre Dame plays USC.
So we’ll be watching how they perform, and we will assess when we get together — start assessing when we get together on Monday to look at what’s transpired over the weekend.”
On how they would handle Texas A&M beating Texas and making the SEC Championship
“You know, you’re asking me a hypothetical again. I don’t know how that would work out in terms of where teams would be and how it would be looked at in terms of Texas A&M and where they’ll be ranked after next weekend if they do beat Texas. How the game goes and the championship and all those kind of things are really both hypotheticals.
But we will assess, and if we determine at that time that teams need to move around and jump up depending on who lost in front of them, we’ve shown that we will make those adjustments as a committee and make that assessment and put them where we believe they should be.”
